Yesterday upon the stair
I met a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
I wish, I wish he'd go away
- Antigonish, Hughes Mearns, 1899
The Foundation knows that "Nobody" is a force of nature. Antimemetic and unknown, they are a wild card at play. Sometimes friend, sometimes foe, and most times neither. They can swoop in and change events with no apparent rhyme or reason to their actions or motives.
Or is there? Could there be something that the Foundation is missing, when all they're doing is trying to catch a ghost no one remembers? Is there something more to be found within those old, lost journals?
The Foundation states that they don't know whether Nobody is an individual or an organization and in a way, both are correct. Nobody is a role. An individual donning a mask with a purpose, and once that purpose is fulfilled, another individual succeeds the role and assumes the name.
Another identity lost, another person forgotten.
The Life and Death of Iteration Prime
The first they found.
Prelude: A Terminus
By Drewbear
He looked at himself in the mirror and inspected his uniform for the day.
Foreign Aid
By Drewbear
Almost involuntarily, Maria half-thought "He looks like a troubled sky, about to turn into a storm."
No Name Given
By MayD
(The Tale you have selected is temporarily out of order. We apologize for the inconvenience. Please accept this coupon for 5% off your next purchase from Prometheus Labs.)
Interlude: An Excerpt
By Drewbear
Excerpt from the transcript of Prometheus Labs board meeting on [DATE REMOVED]
The Stranger and the Secretary
By CryogenChaos
"And this is Mister Nobody."
Interlude: A Special Letter
By Drewbear
Document found among the personal effects of D████ W█████, recovered during Operation PURPLE ENVELOPE
Concerto in D-Major, Orchestrated for Paintbrush and Fedora
By Drewbear
And that was how you met The Critic for the first time.
Interlude: An Exhibition
By Drewbear
Found in 2012, as part of the Library-curated exhibition: "Standing on the Shoulders of the Phoenix: Discovery and Rediscovery in Post-Millenial ReCreationist Anart"
Snippets From The Serpent
By AdminBright
Jagerman rolls some dice, and opens up a door.
Postlude: A Terminus
By Drewbear
She looked at herself in the mirror and inspected her uniform for the day.
Twenty-Four Fallen Fragments
Unique to the Archives of Site-120, the Inventor did not let herself be killed in full so easily. A final shard of magic has weaved its way through twenty-four souls, hollowed them out and made them nothing. The cycle of reincarnation spins, and while each holds their own goal, they are united in a single purpose:
Kill Queen Mab.
The Godhunting of Iteration-α
The first, rising from the ashes of an empire.
Whispers of a Reckoning
By Lemonsense and
Dino--Draws
Do you know what it means when the woods are silent?
It means something terrible is soon to come.
It means the world is holding its breath.
Past the Point of No Return
Within the Threshold Timeline of No Return; Following from the pivot of SCP-6500, the Foundation has decided to preserve the status quo in light of the Impasse and their role in causing it.
And Nobody is going to do something about it.
Nobody Likes a Sneak
By Grigori Karpin
A streetwise Nobody searching for an explanation for the Impasse, starts up an investigation that runs her afoul of cognitohazards, T-rex skeletons, the Wanderer’s Library, and a Paris café.
And that’s just the beginning.
Nobody's Looking for Trouble
By Grigori Karpin
Nobody isn’t alone, she’s working with the Serpent’s Hand, and she isn’t even the only nobody around, but none of that is gonna matter if they can’t find out where the Foundation is holding O5-Zero after their trial.
Nobody Came to the Funeral
By Grigori Karpin
Nobody, along with Zero and the Black queen, meets with a wanderer from a different Foundational mindset, attends a funeral for those lost, and makes plans to see where she can sink a knife to best disrupt the Foundation in the months following SCP-6500.
Series Hub
Current Objective: Avoid the Man in the White Suit, comb through the Nobody Archives to figure out his deal (and Nobody's while I'm at it). Assemble the Name Machine.
Hello My Name Isn't
By Captain Kirby
No two transitions are the same, but they always start with panic. And after the panic subsides, Nobody always finds their footing.
Chiaroscuro
By Tufto
It felt like the fog would never end.
Nobody, Nobody, Nobody, and Nobody's Encounters with The Man in the White Suit
By Rounderhouse
Excerpt from a journal recovered off a battlefield by an American G.I during the Korean War in 1953.
SCP-5353 — Does Anyone Remember Fritz Obermeyer?
By Tufto
SCP-5353 has an unidentified link with PoI-000 "Nobody", and most sightings of SCP-5353 in recent decades have involved PoI-000 to some degree.
Everyday Is Somebody's Birthday
By Captain Kirby
"Happy birthday to me."
SCP-5877 — Nobodies
By Captain Kirby
Worldwide birth record databases are to be routinely copied onto Foundation servers to maintain a centralized hub of all persons with a recorded identity.
Ghosts in the Machine
By Rounderhouse
A hand reaches up and grips the edge, crunching the glass under it. No, not a hand- a prosthetic, plated with white armor. He blanches.
Files intercepted from Anderson Systems personnel
By Rounderhouse
I've no advantage by giving you this, so think about that before you accuse me of lying.
SCP-5375 — Nobody and the Name Machine
By Rounderhouse and
Woedenaz
The PANOPTICON system is operating at peak efficiency and should be capable of triangulating the location of PoI-0000 (Nobody) should they come in range of a node or Aerial Surveillance Drone.
Epilogue: Nobody in their Right Mind
By Tufto
Nobody can remember them all.
TRUE NORTH
The Compass Spins Eternal.
SCP-8316 — Memorium
By Dino--Draws
Do not mettle in what is not yours.
Dead Man's Diary
By Dino--Draws
Coming Soon.
Scattered Pages
For stories that stand alone.
On the Path Nobody Knows
By TheHouseOfBalloons
For the most part, my memory eluded me. Still, I can remember who I was in the Old World.
SCP-8275 — Loss, Erasure, Finding Oneself
By Uncle Nicolini
In which Jay Everwood finds themselves, but loses a bit of themselves.
Role Model
By 7eventy7evenfold
You have: [1] voicemail!
How to Contribute
The Man Who Wasn't There is a looser canon than most. Less an interconnected setting with consistent lore, and more a sandbox utilized to experiment with the "Nobody" Group of Interest and the common themes that emerge from it. To be specific, the most consistently explored themes within this canon are ones of mystery, and primarily, identity. Nobody is less a character, and more a role to be utilized by you to tell a story. To push a character towards an overarching goal or purpose.
Regardless of if an Iteration of Nobody succeeds in their goal, or fails in it, the Succession continues. Another individual takes up the mantle of Nobody, and the fight goes on.
Forever the eternal struggle of a question that plagues many:
Who am I?
The primary (and really only) piece of consistent lore within the canon to keep in mind is how Nobody typically works; They are antimemetic, they are forgotten by all who once knew them and will know them, and they do not remember themselves. A loss of identity and a loss of memory, left nothing but a figure clad in a grey suit and hat.1 The journal-keeping GOI format is often explained in-universe as Nobody writing down information as to remember it, or as a way to retroactively help future iterations that will come after them. Characterization can be variable, as the role of Nobody falls on people from many walks of life.
How the Succession of the role occurs is also variable. It can just be something that occurs naturally in the world, when someone is forgotten. It can be Faustian bargain made with the Iteration before that offers purpose. It can be a simple accident or happenstance.
If you've created a stand alone piece of writing for the canon, feel free to add it to the "Scattered Pages" section with an accompanying blurb! If making a series, give it its own section and title by copy pasting a pre-existing one and editing it. You can make your own banner, or contact me (the canon's curator, Dino--Draws) and I'll be more than happy to make one for you. For any questions, you can similarly feel free to reach out to me.2
I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us
Don't tell—they'd banish us, you know.
- I'm Nobody! Who are you?, Emily Dickinson, 1891
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